Volume 10, Issue 5,
November 2008

Almost ten years ago the mayoral suite of the Cape Town Civic Centre saw the official launch of the Local Government Bulletin. The Bulletin's circulation has grown from 2 000 copies in 1999 to 11 250 copies in 2008. In partnership with SALGA, the Local Government Project has nurtured the Bulletin into the essential resource that it represents to local government practitioners today.

The establishment of the Congress of the People (Cope) has captured the headlines in recent weeks. In these early days, party policy proposals are difficult to come by, so little is known about Cope's vision of local government.

This article outlines the rules dealing with the expulsion and resignation of councillors from their political parties. Central to these rules is the principle that a councillor must vacate office as a councillor when he or she 'ceases to be a member of the political party'.

On 30 June 2008 three important Bills proposing the abolition of the practice of floor-crossing were tabled in Parliament. If passed, the Bills will see an end to this much-debated practice and the legislation that enables it. They represent the response to a growing chorus of discontent from politicians and members of the public about the impact of floor-crossing.

In the 2008 Local Government Budgets and Expenditure Review, the National Treasury analyses how municipalities have been funded since 2003/04 and how they will be funded until 2009/10. It does the same for the expenditure patterns of municipalities. This article highlights just a few important issues from a comprehensive overview.

Health services are essential to the well-being and sustainability of every community in South Africa. 'Municipal health services', in keeping with the developmental mandate of local government, are listed as a Schedule 4B function in the Constitution. It follows that local government has full executive and legislative authority over this function.

As from 1 July 2009, all municipalities must implement the Municipal Property Rates Act. This requires all municipalities to have a proper rates policy, which is in turn implemented in a by-law and a rates resolution. Among the municipalities that have implemented the Act thus far (only 40% of all municipalities) there is great confusion about the exact content of the policy and by-law. The danger in this uncertainty is that if the policy and by-law do not correctly implement the Act, a municipality's ability to enforce the payment of rates may be fatally flawed.

A literal interpretation of this would mean that if a performance agreement is not signed, the employment contract is invalid. There are, however, a number of examples in the law, and even in these regulations, that suggest that this is not the case.

The duty to create and maintain a sound supply chain management (SCM) system is an essential component of the good governance of any municipality. While the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) clearly outlines the type of relationship that should exist between the municipality and those bidding to supply services, it is difficult at times to determine how acts of bribery, for example, should be dealt with and the appropriate procedures to be followed when these matters arise. In the case of Entsha Henra BK v Hessequa Munisipaliteit, the Cape High Court had to review the decision of the executive mayoral committee of the Hessequa Municipality to exclude a bidder from future contractual opportunities. More importantly, it had to evaluate whether this responsibility fell within the powers of the mayoral committee or the municipal manager.

On 13 June 2008, the Constitutional Court delivered a landmark judgment in what has popularly been referred to as the Merafong or Khutsong case. The ongoing struggle of the Merafong community to resist being transferred from the Gauteng province to the North West province has been widely publicised in the media, but the judgment is significant for a number of reasons aside from the public interest generated by the case.